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Half pen

Woodywoodpecker

Woodywoodpecker

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
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Been waiting 4 months for my half unit pens, noticed that cartridges were on my prescription but not pens. Phoned doctors they didn’t know anything about them. Phoned diabetic centre nurse must off been having a bad day, was quite sharp saying we dont stock them get them off your doctor, I just said thank you. Pity no one told me this a few months ago
 
Hi looking for help been given novopen 6, but not got half units on it. Which pen do u all use
 
Woodywoodpecker said:
Thank you diabetic nurse told me to order nova pen 6.
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That was daft! To answer the obvious question of why they make NovoPen 6 at all, Novopen Echo Plus has a smaller maximum single dose. Still quite big, though. I think there's some idea that the Echo (and Echo Plus) are more for children but that's obviously not true. (I think there may have been some design difference once making the Echo pens a bit easier to use but even if that was true it's not now: they're pretty much identical. Just different colours, and the Echo pens can give half doses.)
 
Inka said:
You’d think they’d have more informative names. Why not Novopen Half Units, for example?
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The perils of marketing (it's usually the marketing department that chooses product names). I may be quite wrong, but I suspect there were once two rather different pens: one for adults and one for children, and they've (more or less) converged in design but the naming is still distinct.
 
Don’t know how the nurse got it wrong, as doctor at hospital sent letter to my doctor with nova pen echo on. Getting phone call tomorrow, so hopefully get sorted quickly
 
Woodywoodpecker said:
Don’t know how the nurse got it wrong, as doctor at hospital sent letter to my doctor with nova pen echo on. Getting phone call tomorrow, so hopefully get sorted quickly
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I hope that you can get this sorted. So frustrating that you have been given the run around just to get 1/2 unit pens.

They were many years ago thought of children’s pens. Mine even came with stickers and were in more interesting colours. I chose orange to match the Novorapid and a green to have a contrast for basal insulin. (Still managed to muddle them upon occasions!!)
 
Can anyone tell me why all prescriptions don’t include the relevant PIP code? Then there would be less room for doubt or error.

If it helps, in this case, for Novopen Echo Plus colour red 419-6671, colour blue 419-6663
 
SB2015 said:
I hope that you can get this sorted. So frustrating that you have been given the run around just to get 1/2 unit pens.

They were many years ago thought of children’s pens. Mine even came with stickers and were in more interesting colours. I chose orange to match the Novorapid and a green to have a contrast for basal insulin. (Still managed to muddle them upon occasions!!)
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Hopefully soon, had phone call from nurse at my local doctors. To be honest struggling to get most off my prescriptions just now, usually 2 weeks wait. Ordered keytone strips in December still waiting for them, doctors keep putting caresens ones through, have had about 4 hundred now keep sending them back. Pharmacist phoning me Tuesday to sort prescriptions out
 
Woodywoodpecker said:
Hopefully soon, had phone call from nurse at my local doctors. To be honest struggling to get most off my prescriptions just now, usually 2 weeks wait. Ordered keytone strips in December still waiting for them, doctors keep putting caresens ones through, have had about 4 hundred now keep sending them back. Pharmacist phoning me Tuesday to sort prescriptions out
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If you send them back they will be disposed of as they cannot re-prescribe items that have left the pharmacy. That is why you should check your bag of medication when you are handed them at the counter although I appreciate many people get them delivered these days.
If they are the correct strips for your meter then keep them and use them and just don't order anymore for a long while, otherwise they are wasted.
Hope you manage to get things sorted out with the pharmacist.
 
rebrascora said:
If you send them back they will be disposed of as they cannot re-prescribe items that have left the pharmacy. That is why you should check your bag of medication when you are handed them at the counter although I appreciate many people get them delivered these days.
If they are the correct strips for your meter then keep them and use them and just don't order anymore for a long while, otherwise they are wasted.
Hope you manage to get things sorted out with the pharmacist.
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Didn’t realise they disposed off them, thought was doing good sending them back. We get ours delivered, delivery driver told me all libres were getting discontinued, a said just the 2 changing into 2+ he wasn’t having it. Got sensors today no pen yet or keytone strips, yeah hopefully sorted next week
 
Bruce Stephens said:
I may be quite wrong, but I suspect there were once two rather different pens: one for adults and one for children, and they've (more or less) converged in design but the naming is still distinct.
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Wasn’t one with half units called the ‘junior’ early on? (Because apparently no adult would ever need half units 🙄 )
 
everydayupsanddowns said:
Wasn’t one with half units called the ‘junior’ early on? (Because apparently no adult would ever need half units 🙄 )
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Yes, I had a Junior Pen and was lead to believe I was lucky to have it as an adult.
On the other hand, my Lantus pen only gave 2 units and any requests for a single unit pen were declined because “they didn’t exist”. There was a huge difference for me between 10 units and 12 units.
Those were the good old early days. At least I didn’t have a CGM to see the falling/rising BG throughout the night.
 
helli said:
On the other hand, my Lantus pen only gave 2 units and any requests for a single unit pen were declined because “they didn’t exist”.
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Yes I nearly mentioned the blue 2u AutoPens.

Whoever told you there were no 1u options just needed to know about the green ones 🙄
 
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